Wolf Cub
by Aireon Maris
Summary: A strange girl appears in Cardiff, claiming to be from Jack's future. She refuses to say anything more, but Jack is determined to find out who she is and what she's running from.
1. Chapter 1

Cardiff bustled. The streets were full of people moving in every direction, thousands of individual lives intersecting for a second before continuing on their way. Thousands of individuals living out their normal lives in a city that was anything but.

No one noticed the girl lying in the middle of the plaza. No one ever noticed the strange things that always happened in Cardiff. She was wearing a black and white sweater, jeans, and fingerless purple gloves. A bright blue knit cap covered most of her reddish hair.

She was lying precisely on top of a rift in time and space, not that it was visible to the naked eye. Her arrival had been sudden and unobtrusive, though far more traumatic for her. After a moment, she began to stir. She opened large, brown eyes and looked around with a dazed expression.

"That went well," she muttered. "...I think." She pushed herself into a sitting position and lifted a hand to her head. "Ugh. Displacement hangover. That's not fun." She got rather shakily to her feet and took a more careful look at her surroundings. "Cardiff. Right. Just like Dad said. All right, first things first. Gotta find out the year." She took a few wobbly steps before the strength returned to her legs. Then she wandered off in search of a newspaper stand.

She fished in her pocket for a quid and paid the man, accepting the newspaper in exchange. It was good to find out current events, too. She sat down on a nearby bench and read the date. March 1st, 2007. Interesting. She scanned the headlines and found nothing exciting or out of place. "So we didn't mess with anything," she said to herself. "Brilliant." She spoke with an Estuary accent, a little out of place in southern Wales.

She amused herself for about fifteen minutes reading the funny pages, before she abruptly put the paper down and made eye contact with the man stealthily approaching her. "Hello, Captain," she said brightly. "Who're your friends? I don't know them."

Captain Jack Harkness stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the girl with a guarded expression. "And I don't know you," he said slowly. "But apparently you know me. Who are you?"

"Olivia, but please call me Livy. Only Mum uses my full name and only when she's cross," the girl said, folding the paper. "I rather hoped it'd be you. The other Torchwood blokes are a bunch of tossers, if you ask me. But no one ever does. Crime, really, since I've got so much to say."

"Pardon me, but how old are you?" asked the woman standing to the Captain's left.

"Oh, you're pretty, you are," Livy said with a smile, tilting her head to get a better look at the woman. "What's your name?"

"Gwen. Gwen Cooper," she said, looking thoroughly bewildered.

"Well then, Gwen Cooper, I am fourteen relative years old. Relative to me, that is, because I haven't been born yet."

Jack nodded, a knowing expression on his face. "A time traveler, huh? How'd you get here?"

She held up her wrist. "Vortex manipulator. Borrowed it from my uncle." She giggled for some reason known only to her. "No telling, really, where you're going to end up, though."

"Don't I know it," Jack muttered. "So, Livy. Could I make the assumption that you're human?"

The girl shrugged. "Close enough."

"Could I further assume that you're not from earth?" Jack pressed.

"You could," she answered.

"But what are you doing here?" burst out the other man in Jack's group. "Why Cardiff?"

"Dunno, actually," Livy said with another shrug. "Must have something to do with the Rift. Kinda attracts weird stuff."

"And...are _you_ weird?" asked the Asian woman.

"Most definitely!" Livy said cheerfully. "I shouldn't ever have existed!" She hopped to her feet and tossed the paper back onto the bench. "So, you going to take me to your headquarters or what?"

Torchwood Three had gathered in a close huddle, all staring at the strange girl who sat atop one of the desks, swinging her legs and looking around with a curious air. "Right," said Ianto Jones in his deep voice. "What have we got?"

"A human alien not from earth who has traveled back in time to before she was born which wasn't supposed to happen," Jack replied.

"She wasn't supposed to travel in time?" Ianto asked.

"No," Jack replied. "She wasn't supposed to be born."

"And she seems to know Jack," Toshiko Sato added.

"Which is impossible, because I would certainly remember meeting her," Jack muttered.

"Well she did say she was from the future," Gwen said hesitantly. "So maybe you haven't met her yet?"

Jack shot her an unreadable look. "Well, we're not going to get anywhere talking to ourselves," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I guess I'd better go talk to her."

"Good luck," Owen Harper said with a sneer. "She hasn't said a word since we got down here."

"Maybe you weren't asking the right questions," Jack shot back. He walked over to Livy and leaned against the desk next to her. "You doing all right?" he asked kindly.

She smiled up at him, her eyes twinkling. For a moment, Jack thought there was something familiar about her expression, but the moment soon passed. "I'm fantastic!" she said enthusiastically. "Time travel's old hat and all, but I've never done it by myself. It's loads of fun. I should do it more often."

"Livy, who exactly are you?" Jack asked, his expression serious.

"I told you. My name's Olivia," she said, kicking her legs.

"No. Who are you? Where are you from? And why are you here?" Jack pressed, putting his hands on the desk and leaning towards her. "I need to know."

She leaned towards him until their faces were inches apart. "I can't tell you," she said.

"Why?" Jack demanded, refusing to back down.

"Time paradox," Livy replied, leaning back. "Can't tell you about your own future."

"You're in my future?" Jack asked, just to be sure. Then a horrible though hit him. "You're not _my—_"

"Your kid?" Livy finished. She giggled and shook her head. "Nope. Just someone you know."

"What am I supposed to do with you?" Jack asked bluntly.

"Keep me safe," Livy replied, her expression gone abruptly serious. "You're the only one my parents trusted enough to send me to."

Jack snapped his fingers. "So it wasn't an accident, you ending up in Cardiff. You came looking for me."

She cocked her finger at him. "And he's a winner!" she said, once more all smiles. "Never was good at fibbing. Not that Mum ever minded."

"Your parents trust me. Who are they?"

Livy waggled a finger. "Ah, ah, ah. Not going to trip me up that way. Let's just say you know them and leave it at that."

"Are they someone I know now?" Jack asked, trying to wheedle the information out of her.

She raised an eyebrow and just stared at him. "You aren't from now, Jack," she told him bluntly. "You're from the 51st century. Just think of all of those people. Loads of possibilities. Now." She clapped her hands together and rubbed them briskly. "What do you feed a girl around here?"

"Are you sure it's safe?" Gwen asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "I mean, she _is_ an alien, she told us herself!"

"I have reason to believe she's not going to run away," Jack assured her. "And I've taken away her vortex manipulator. She's not going anywhere. The Hub just isn't a comfortable place to spend the night. Would you rather I send her home with Owen?"

"Lord, no," Gwen said quickly. She pressed her lips together and flicked her dark hair over her shoulder. "All right, I'll take her home. She won't admit it, but the poor dear's exhausted. You can see it all over her face."

She left Jack's side and walked over to Livy. "Well, you'll be coming with me, then," she said cheerily. "Stay the night at my place. I'm sure you'd like to have a hot bath?"

"Yes, please!" Livy said, perking up. "You wouldn't believe the muscles that get sore during temporal displacement." She hesitated a moment, and then said, "And maybe some tea? Mum always said a cuppa does the body good."

"Of course," Gwen said, putting her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Off we go now." Gwen shot Jack a look as they passed him, and Livy wriggled her fingers at him.

"Night, Jack," the girl said with a smile.

"Goodnight," Jack replied, waving. As soon as the they were out of sight, Jack rushed to Tosh's work station, where the computer tech and Owen were waiting. "Did you get those scans?" Jack demanded.

"Every remote medical scan we could," Owen replied. "EEG, heart rate, blood pressure, basic DNA, and pupil dilation."

"And?" Jack queried.

"She isn't human," Tosh said. "At least, not completely. Her DNA suggests a hybrid between human and alien, but the alien donor isn't in the database."

"She also has an elevated heart rate and blood pressure," Owen added.

"Results of temporal displacement," Jack dismissed. "EEG?"

"Definitely non-human brain wave patterns," Tosh reported. "Take a look. Way too much activity for an average human."

"You're right," Jack murmured, looking at the chart. "There's something about this girl...something familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it."

"Do you want me to keep on these?" Tosh asked. "See what else I can find out?"

"Actually, I want you to have a look at this," Jack replied, handing her Livy's vortex manipulator. "Full spectrum analysis. Try to find its starting location. Owen, you work on the medical scans."

"All right," Owen agreed. "And what are you going to do?"

"Research," Jack replied over his shoulder as he headed toward his office.


	2. Chapter 2

Livy was humming an unfamiliar song, waving her hands to her music and shuffling her feet slightly, as if she was dancing. She was wearing one of Gwen's shirts, which was too big for her thin frame. She had kept the gloves and the hat, even though it wasn't cold in the Hub. Jack stood watching her from a distance, chin propped in his hand.

There were no recorded sightings of her anywhere in history. They could find nothing more from her EEG or DNA. She was a mystery, and though Jack loved mysteries, he loved solving them more.

"What song is that?" he asked. Livy pivoted on one toe of her Converse trainers to face him.

"'Eternity Hurts' by Penny Wishes," she replied. "Won't come out for another, oh, sixty years or so. Dad thinks they're rubbish, but Mum likes them, too."

"You said last night I'm supposed to keep you safe," Jack said. "Safe from what?"

Livy finally stood still, looking at Jack with an expression in her eyes far too old for her face. "Everything," she replied simply. She turned away from him. "You have anything to read around here?"

Tosh approached Jack a little while later. "I did the tests on the vortex manipulator like you asked me," she said in a low voice. "I found something...interesting."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Well, for starters, it's over a hundred years old," Tosh said. Jack frowned.

"You're right; that is interesting. Anything else?"

"Yes, and this is even stranger. It's been upgraded and repaired several times, but otherwise it's identical to yours."

Jack blinked at her. "What, same make and model?"

"Same everything," Tosh said, spreading her hands. "I would have to say it _is_ yours."

"That's not possible," Jack said, shaking his head. "Livy said her uncle gave it to—oh, crap." Jack froze with a deer in the headlights expression, one Tosh had rarely seen on her team leader. "She can't be," he muttered.

An alarm suddenly blared overhead and Ianto could be heard yelling from somewhere, "The scanners are picking up Rift activity!" Jack and Tosh dashed for the computer station, where the rest of the team was also gathering.

"What is it?" Owen demanded. "What have we got?"

"An alien life form," Tosh reported. "It must have come through the Rift. It's heading toward the wharfs."

"SUV, now!" Jack ordered. Owen and Gwen ran to keep up with him as he headed toward the garage. Tosh's fingers flew over the keyboard, Ianto hovering over her shoulder. No one noticed Livy slipping out after the other three.

There was a brief scuffle for the passenger seat which Owen lost. Just as Jack was about to peel out of the garage, Livy flung herself into the truck and buckled her seat belt. "I'm coming, too," she announced.

"The hell you are," Jack began, but the girl cut him off.

"There's no time to argue. We're going to lose it!" she said urgently. Jack bit down on his words and stomped on the gas pedal. Unfortunately, she was right.

"Tosh, keep talking to me," he ordered into his headset.

"It's moving fast, you'll have to hurry to keep up with it," she said. "Head south."

Jack weaved his way through the traffic, getting to the wharfs in half the time it would normally take. "Stay here!" he ordered Livy as they piled out of the car.

"Not likely," she replied cheerfully. Jack growled in frustration, but said nothing more as they headed out, following Tosh's directions. Livy kept pace with the adults, her long legs pumping furiously, but she never complained. They raced down the alleys of the docks, splitting up to corner the alien. Livy stuck with Jack, always a few steps behind him.

They tracked the creature to a shipping yard, searching through the packing crates. When it gave them the slip, they had to backtrack in order to surround it. "Where is it?" Owen panted over the radio. "Where's it gone?"

"Right...there," Livy said, pointing. Jack whirled around to see something crouching in a shadow at the end of the aisle. "Look at it," the teenager breathed. "It's beautiful!"

Beauty was certainly in the eye of the beholder, because the alien was certainly not pleasant-looking. Scales were interspersed with tufts of fur. It walked more-or-less upright, with a reptilian snout and a heavy tail.

"A Rexorian Lizard," Livy said, breathing shallowly. "Young one, too. First growth stage. Poor thing's probably scared out of its wits."

"We need to contain it before it starts scaring anyone else," Jack told her shortly. "Get behind me." The teenager did as he asked as he reached under his coat. He pulled out the weapon and aimed it at the alien.

"Oi!" Livy suddenly yelled. "What do you think you're doing?" Her voice startled the creature and it darted off again.

"What did you do that for?" Jack asked furiously, rounding on the girl.

"You were going to shoot it!" Livy retorted, sounding just as angry. "There was no call for that!"

"Rexorian Lizards are carnivores," Jack told her. "They're dangerous!"

"He hadn't hurt anyone. The least you could do is give him a chance!"

Jack glared at her but didn't continue the argument. "Tosh, where is it now?"

"Circling back towards Gwen and Owen," she replied.

"All right, try to get a visual and take it down if you get a clear shot."

"Oi!" Livy yelled again.

"Stun it, if at all possible," Jack continued, scowling at her. "You are in so much trouble right now, young lady," he growled at her. Livy only stuck her tongue out at him. He stomped off towards his team mates, the girl tagging along behind him.

They arrived on the scene of chaos. Owen was wrestling with the creature, though it looked as if it simply wanted to get away. Gwen stood nearby with her stun gun, yelling at Owen to get out of the way. Jack paused for a split second to sigh, and then he rushed into the fray, grabbing the creature off of Owen.

The lizard swung its tail around, knocking Jack's feet out from under him and sending him sprawling on top of Owen. Gwen fired and missed as the alien darted towards freedom, only to be covered by dozens of thin, blue tendrils of electricity. It collapsed and lay twitching for a few seconds before it went still.

Livy stood over the alien, brandishing a round, silver device. "Personal defense unit," she said proudly. "Releases an adaptive electric shock that'll knock out anything organic." She frowned briefly at the device. "Doesn't work on robots, though." She slipped it into her pocket and beamed. "See, no one had to get hurt."

"You're still in trouble," Jack said, coming over to study the lizard. Livy crouched beside it and ran her hand over its coarse fur.

"There, there," she murmured. "We're gonna take care of you."

"What is that thing?" Owen asked, straightening his clothing.

"Rexorian Lizard," Jack replied absently, his attention caught by the girl. "Predators, but not particularly vicious. Shouldn't be a problem to contain."

"Do we get to keep it?" Livy asked cheekily.

"For the moment," Jack said. He continued to stare intently at Livy. "I know who you are," he said.

Her smile slowly evaporated from her face. "Figured it out yourself, did you?" she said with a nod. "Thought you might. You're smart. Always have been." She blew a sigh. "Oh... Now what to do?"

"First we're gonna get this back to the Hub," Jack said, nudging the lizard with his toe. "Then you're gonna talk."

It took them over two hours to get the Rexorian Lizard settled into one of the containment cells underneath the Hub. When Jack got up to his office, Livy was waiting for him, her expression serious. He sat down at his chair and they simply looked at each other for a long moment.

"You've got your father's eyes," Jack said eventually. "And your mother's smile."

"That's what everyone says," Livy replied. She took off her cap for the first time and ran her fingers though her thick, straight hair. She laughed a little. "Dad always loved the fact I turned out ginger. Said he knew he had it in him."

"So..." Jack said after another moment of silence. "You going to tell me what happened?"

To his chagrin, Livy promptly burst into tears. "I want my Mum and Dad," she said, blinking away moisture in her eyes. "I want my Uncle Jack. You taught me...never to lose a fight. To never miss an opportunity. To never be afraid." Tears spilled onto her cheeks. "I'm so scared."

Jack was out of his seat in a flash and Livy threw herself at him and they landed on the floor in a tangle. He cradled her against his chest as she sobbed brokenly, stroking her hair and murmuring gently. When the storm subsided, he dried her tears and looked into her brown eyes.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

"We wanted to go to the ocean," she said, sniffling a little. She accepted his handkerchief gratefully. "Someplace warm. Dad knew a really great place, so we went. Only... it was empty. The whole planet. They were just...gone." She sniffed again and pressed the handkerchief to her eyes. "We didn't mean to wake them, really. We were just trying to find out where everybody had gone."

"Wake who?"

"The Bonedancers," Livy whispered with a shudder. "It was awful. We barely made it back to the TARDIS. They—somehow they latched onto our wake through the Time Vortex. Everywhere we went they followed, and we couldn't stop them. Then they came to earth." Her breath hitched and for several moments she couldn't continue. Jack stroked her hair again, resting his chin on the top of her head.

"Go on," he said gently.

"Dad said it would kill her," she forced out through another onslaught of tears. "But Mum said it was the only way."

"What happened?" Jack asked, a little too sharply.

"I don't know!" Livy sobbed. "You sent me away! Made me come here, to you, so that I'd be safe!"

Jack rocked her back and forth. "Oh, Livy," he whispered. "I am so sorry."

*****

She was sketching something, her lower lip caught in her teeth as she moved the pencil over the paper. Jack watched her in silence from the other side of the glass partition, Gwen at his side.

"Well, then. Who is she?" Gwen asked.

"She's my niece," Jack replied, never taking his eyes off Livy. Gwen looked at him in surprise.

"You never mentioned you had family," she said, sounding a little put out.

"It's...complicated," Jack replied. "I have a sister. That's her daughter." He nodded toward the girl.

"What's your sister's name?" Gwen peered up into Jack's face, trying to read the expression behind the blue eyes.

"Rose," Jack whispered almost reverently. "Her name is Rose."

"Pretty name."

"She's a pretty girl," Jack replied.

"Jack," Gwen said carefully. "If you can't die, and you're hundreds of years old, how is it your sister had a child in the future, that came back to the present?"

"Time travel," Jack said with a snort. "Gotta love it." He turned abruptly to Gwen. "I'm not going to tell you everything about me, Gwen. I probably never will. My past—hell, and my future—is painful, and not even I know all of it. So you're just going to have to trust me."

Gwen merely lifted an eyebrow. "I always do," she said simply, and walked away. Jack sighed and rubbed his eyes. Then he stepped back into his office.

"Are you all right?" he asked softly.

"I'm always all right," she replied tiredly, not looking up from her drawing. "Always have to be."

"Did I tell you that?" Jack asked, forcing a smile.

"No. Dad."

Jack looked over her shoulder at the picture she was working on and flinched. It was hardly the thing anyone expected a fourteen-year-old girl to draw. Whatever it was, it was hideous, like a bundle of weirdly-shaped bones strung together by sinew and wire. "Is that a Bonedancer?" he asked.

She nodded and put her pencil down. She had once more donned her blue cap; it kept her hair out of her face so Jack could see her expression. It was schooled and hard, but also brittle, as if the tiniest pressure would shatter it.

"They use the bones of the people they kill to make themselves bigger, stronger," she said. Her hands were restless, tugging at her ever-present gloves. "They rattle when they walk. I can still hear them sometimes...when I sleep."

"I'm sorry," he said again. Livy shrugged abruptly and turned the page over, hiding the monster. Her expression was even more fixed, more determined.

"It's going to be okay," she said firmly. "It always is. Mum and Dad will come back to get me when it's safe. You won't come. Can't risk meeting yourself. Time paradoxes are such nasty things. Did Mum every tell you of the time she met herself as a baby? World nearly ended."

Jack sat down and moved his chair next to Livy's. "Tell me about you," he said. "It can't hurt anymore, since I already know who you are. Why weren't you supposed to exist?"

A half-smile quirked her mouth. "Everywhere and every when Dad's gone, he never met sight nor sound of me. He had children once, but he lost them in the Time War. The Doctor wasn't supposed to have any more kids."

"But then he met Rose," Jack said, a fond look on his face.

"Yeah," Livy said. "Mum's, well, she's different. She sort of exists outside of time. No, that's not right...I know. She's not ruled by time. It treats her different than the rest of the universe."

"Why?" Jack asked. He always knew Rose was special, but this was new.

"Because she's Bad Wolf," Livy said simply.

Jack frowned. He had heard of Bad Wolf before, but it slipped his memory. He fished around for a few more minutes, and then it came to him. "Bad Wolf's just a legend," he objected. "An anomaly in the space-time continuum."

"Rose Tyler is Bad Wolf," Livy insisted. "It started on the Gamestation, Satellite Five. The Daleks were invading and Dad sent Mum home to protect her."

"I remember that," Jack said. "I died."

"And Bad Wolf brought you back," Livy said. "Mum didn't want to let Dad die on his own. She had to save him, so she absorbed the Time Vortex and became Bad Wolf. She wiped out the Daleks and brought you back to life, only she couldn't control the power so she brought you back forever. Then, it was killing her, so Dad took it from her, but it made him regenerate. Only they found out later he hadn't taken all of it and it changed her."

"Changed her how?" Jack asked, leaning forward.

Livy reached up and tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear. "She's powerful. I mean really, really powerful. But not all the time. Sometimes Bad Wolf just comes. And when it does, well, there's nothing that can stop her. Other times she's just like you or me. Well, that's not right, since neither of us are what you'd call normal...or helpless." Livy amended thoughtfully.

"You're a Time Lord," Jack said. It wasn't really a question.

"Time Lady," Livy corrected. "Yeah."

Jack studied her face for a long moment. At first glance she looked like any other teenaged girl: young, pretty, somewhat shallow, but it was her eyes that gave her away. She had a Time Lord's eyes: ancient, wise, full of sorrow and joy beyond human understanding.

"Start from the beginning," Jack ordered softly. "Tell me everything."


	3. Chapter 3

She thought everything had been going so well. She should have known better. Rose Tyler sneezed miserably and huddled in the corner of the pit where they had thrown her, too afraid of what else might be down there to move. She was cold and wet and had no idea how much time had passed in the pitch black cell.

It was their first trip since spending Christmas with her mum and Mickey, since the Doctor had gained a new body and a personality to match. It had been hard, at first, to accept him, but in the end she had to. He was the Doctor, and she could never, ever leave him. She had even told him that, out under the Christmas sky with the snow falling down around them.

Now she was stuck in the bottom of some bloody dungeon and there was no sign of the Doctor. Rose sneezed again and coughed, a wet sound from the bottom of her lungs. Fantastic. Now she was coming down with something, too.

Rose closed her eyes and wished really, really hard for some sort of light, even if it was just a matchstick. After a few seconds, she realized that a soft golden glow had been gradually building on the other side of her eyelids. Startled, she opened her eyes and gasped.

Her skin was glowing, as if light exuded from every pore. It filled up the pit, driving the little crawly things scurrying back into their dark corners. Even the mold on the stone walls shrank from the touch of the golden light.

Rose stared open-mouthed around her. Suddenly the light frightened her, and she squeezed her eyes closed again. Then a grating noise came from overhead, and she looked up. A line of harsh white light appeared in the ceiling, and at the same instant, the golden glow went out.

The line grew into a square, and Rose shielded her eyes from the glare. A disheveled head appeared over the edge of the opening. "Rose, you in there?"

"Doctor!" Rose cried, scrambling to her feet. "Yes! Yes, I'm here!"

"Brilliant!" he exclaimed. "Hold on for a second." His head disappeared, and Rose waited, breathless, for several minutes while she listened to him scrabble around. Then a rope ladder tumbled through the hole and the Doctor reappeared. "There you are. Come on up."

It took a while to scale the swinging rope structure, but Rose finally made it to the top. The Doctor grabbed her arms and they tumbled over the edge onto the floor, tangled up in each other and the ropes. Rose giggled slightly as the Doctor laboriously disentangled them, and then helped her to her feet.

"Are you all right?" he asked, peering at her in concern.

"Better now," she assured him, and sneezed. "Sorry. I think I caught a cold or something," she admitted. He handed her a handkerchief.

"Not surprising," he muttered. "The Kepra'Torth don't take the best care of their prisoners, especially the wrongfully imprisoned ones. Honestly, all you did was turn down a drink."

"I think that the fact it was the crown prince made it a bit more criminal," Rose observed. She looked around. "Where is everyone, anyway?"

"Putting out the fire in the north wing of the palace," the Doctor said matter-of-factually.

"What fire in the north...oh," Rose trailed off when she caught sight of the Doctor's smug expression. He offered her his hand, and they set off down the corridor. After a few twists and turns, they reached a large door with an equally large lock. The Doctor reached into his jacket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He had the lock opened in seconds and they stepped out into a large, open courtyard.

Across the yard sat a bright blue police box, its windows lit up invitingly. "Ah. Home, sweet home," the Doctor said fondly, squeezing Rose's hand. A shout came from back inside and they both jumped slightly. They hurried across the yard and burst into the TARDIS, shutting the door tightly behind them.

"Hang on!" the Doctor cried as he circled the ring-shaped console. "This could be a bumpy ride!"

Rose braced herself, grabbing hold of the railing. She was used to the movements of the TARDIS by now, but it never hurt to be on the safe side. The ship lurched underfoot, spun around three times, and landed with a bang. Then everything went silent.

"Where are we?" Rose asked, looking around.

"Darashillia," the Doctor replied. "Don't worry, it's been uninhabited for ages. We're just here to get some rest. Do you want me to make you some tea while you get a shower?"

"What? Are you saying I smell?" Rose asked indignantly.

"Well, it's not that you smell so much as—yeah, you do," he replied with a cheeky grin. The smile slowly slipped at the sight of Rose's expression. "Are you all right?" he asked.

Rose took a deep breath. "No, I'm really not," she admitted with a hitch in her voice. "It was so dark and I was alone and I didn't know if you were coming..."

The Doctor bounded across the console room and wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face in his shoulder as she fought to regain control of herself. "Rose, I will always come for you," he promised her gravely. "Nothing in this whole universe can stop me."

She nodded and wiped at her eyes. "I know," she said. "I'm all right, now."

He released her and patted her shoulder. "Right. I'll get to work on that tea."

*****

"Rose. Rose! Wake up!"

She sat up with a gasp, staring wide-eyed at the Doctor, who was perched on the side of her bed, his hand on her shoulder. He was sans jacket and tie, the top button of his shirt undone. "What?" she asked groggily. "What's happened?"

"You were dreaming," he told her. "And from the way you were screaming, I'd say it wasn't a good one."

"It wasn't," she replied with a shudder. She had been alone in the dark, calling for the Doctor but he never came.

"Are you going to be okay now?" he asked. When she hesitated, he quickly added, "Or you could come sit in the library with me."

"Yeah, that'd be fine," she agreed gratefully.

They settled on the couch in the library, the Doctor with a book and Rose with a cup of tea. They started out at opposite ends of the sofa, but before an hour had passed, Rose was sitting in his lap with her feet tucked up, her back resting against his chest. His hand rested on her knee and one long leg was tucked under hers.

Rose sighed and let herself relax. Her time in the Kepra'Torth dungeon had shaken her even more than she let on. It was good to be with the Doctor; he made her feel safe. Which was ironic, considering all the trouble he got her in. Before she knew it, she was dozing. The Doctor carefully removed the cup of tea from her loose grip and set it on the side table. Rose looked so peaceful that he didn't have the heart to move her. He watched her drift into deeper sleep, and this time she didn't dream.

*****

They'd done it again. Outrun yet another alien menace and barely made it back to the TARDIS ahead of their pursuers. Rose and the Doctor stood with their backs to the door, laughing hysterically. The Doctor grabbed Rose and spun her around in his exuberance.

"Pitchforks!" he exclaimed. "We just got chased by a mob with pitchforks! Brilliant!"

Rose giggled at his excitement. He took a ridiculous amount of pleasure in all the scraps they got themselves in. "All because of that sonic screwdriver of yours," she told him, grinning.

"Not my fault they're too primitive to appreciate the benefits of advanced technology," the Doctor retorted. He set Rose on her feet and she had to grab his arms to steady herself. They were inches apart, chests still heaving from exertion, and the next thing Rose knew, they were kissing.

Her brain went blank for half a second before catching up and she pressed against his body, deepening the kiss. It was perfect, everything she had ever wanted it to be, and it was over far too soon. She tried to follow when he pulled away, but her lungs were reminding her that she needed to breathe, so she released him reluctantly. The expression on his face was shock, as if he couldn't believe what had just happened.

"Should I have done that?" he asked, his eyes wide. "Was that—I mean, are you..." he trailed off, staring at her.

"Of course you should have done that," Rose said with a touch of irritation. "What the hell took you so long?"

"Oh," the Doctor said, and kissed her again.

*****

Gregory House was not in a good mood. Now granted, he rarely ever was, but being forced by Cuddy to work in the free clinic for the third time this week certainly clinched the deal. He snatched the next folder from the nurse and limped toward the examination room, calculating the odds of leaving the clinic early. The way Cuddy was stalking him, however, made those odds decidedly not good. He swung open the door of the exam room and slammed it closed with his cane.

"Hello, I'm Dr. House, what's wrong with you?" was his abrupt greeting. Not that he needed to ask. He already knew what the diagnosis was after a single glance.

There was a woman—girl, actually—sitting on the exam table. She was petite, with peroxide blonde hair, bold features, and a full, kissable mouth. She wore comfortable sneakers, jeans, and a hoodie over a pink t-shirt. She clutched a wad of tissues in one hand. Heavy mascara was her only makeup, emphasizing the warm shade of her light brown eyes.

"I've got a head cold," she complained in a middle-class London accent. "We've tried everything, but it won't go away." She wiped her nose with the tissues and looked around for a trash can. Once her old tissues were disposed of, her companion handed her a few more.

House spared a moment to size up the man hovering protectively over the girl. He wasn't old enough to be her father, didn't look enough like her to be a brother, so he had to be her lover. Lucky man; the girl was decidedly hot. The man was probably early thirties, with tousled brown hair, a thin, wiry frame, and a rather eccentric fashion style. He wore a pinstriped brown suit over a light blue shirt, topped off by a green tie and off-white Converse sneakers. He looked extremely uncomfortable, as if the clinic was the last place he wanted to be.

"Right. And your symptoms?" House asked, bored already.

"Well, I'm all stopped up, and my stomach's queasy, and I can't stop—_achoo_!" She sneezed explosively, covering her mouth and nose with the tissues. "Sneezing," she finished lamely.

"How long have two been sleeping together?" House asked, pretending to look over the paper work Ms. Rose Tyler had filled out earlier.

"Excuse me?" the man sputtered, his ears turning bright red. Aha! House had been right.

"Are you on the pill or do you use condoms?" House pressed, enjoying the man's clear discomfort. "Not that either of them are fail proof, though."

"Pill?" the girl asked, looking bewildered.

"Pill. Birth control, contraceptive, Plan B," House listed.

"What does that have anything to do with it?" she asked. Strangely enough, House's crass questioning had done nothing to unnerve her.

"Everything," House snapped, annoyed that his tactics hadn't worked. "Because, Ms. Tyler, you're pregnant."

Her eyes grew round and she wrenched her head around to stare up at her companion.

"That's not possible," the man said, looking stunned.

"What? Are you saying you two haven't been shagging?" House asked snidely.

"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of genetically..." the man stuttered, absentmindedly curling his hand around Ms. Tyler's.

"Well, in that case, she's been cheating on you," House said with a smirk. The man blinked, and looked questioningly down at Ms. Tyler.

"No!" she snapped at his silent question. "Mickey and I aren't like that anymore."

"Right, of course," he said hastily. "But this is really, really impossible."

"Why?" Ms. Tyler asked softly. "Why can't I be pregnant?"

"Because you're, you know, and I'm...not!" her companion exclaimed.

"Since when do you say things like 'impossible'?" she demanded irritably.

"Because it just is," the man insisted. "You can't be having a baby. We can't have a baby. What would we do with a baby, anyway?"

"He's just afraid that when word gets out he impregnated his jail-bait girlfriend, your parents are going to sue," House interrupted.

"Oi! I'm twenty, thank you very much," Ms. Tyler said indignantly. "And don't you be having a go at my parents!"

"Rose, calm down," the man said, patting their clasped hands. She whirled on him.

"Don't tell me to calm down! I'm going to have a baby, and you just said you didn't want it! How am I supposed to calm down? Does this mean you'll go and leave me, too? Drop me off in Aberdeen without so much as a goodbye?"

Now this was starting to get amusing, House thought to himself.

"Rose," the man said softly, setting his hands on her shoulders and looking intensely into her eyes. "I promised I would never leave you, remember? And I always, always keep my promises. I won't leave you anywhere, not in Aberdeen, not anywhere, all right?"

Aw, crap. It had to go and get mushy. "Well, if that's everything, schedule a prenatal with the nurse on your way out," House said irritably, getting to his feet.

"Wait," Ms. Tyler said. "How far along am I? Isn't there a test, or an ultrasound, or something?"

House rolled his eyes. "If you insist." He pulled a syringe out of a drawer. "Roll up your sleeve." The girl didn't even flinch when the needle pierced her skin, though her grip on her lover's hand tightened when he drew the blood. "It'll be a few hours," he said before stalking out.

He managed to breeze through three more patients (an earache, tonsillitis, and a case of chicken pox) before the test results came back. He didn't thank the nurse, merely snatching the file and stomping back to the exam room. "It's confirmed. Undeniable proof," he announced, barging through the door. He tossed the file to the man, who caught it awkwardly.

The man (he had never given his name, had he?) opened the folder and stared at the first page. "Oh," he said weakly. He closed it and looked at Ms. Tyler. "We're going to have a baby. In," he checked the test result again. "Approximately twenty-five weeks."

Ms. Tyler tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "And how do you feel about that?" she asked.

He blinked, his brown eyes looking enormous in his suddenly pale face. "I think I'm going to faint."

And he promptly did.

*****

When the Doctor regained consciousness, the first thing he saw was Rose's concerned face hovering a few inches above his. Beyond her, that dreadful House person was leaning on his cane, laughing. The Doctor quickly determined he'd been unconscious for about two minutes.

"Doctor?" Rose asked. "Are you all right?"

Interesting question. _Was_ he all right? He pondered the matter for a while, but Rose would only notice a second or two pass by. She was always wondering how he could make split-second decisions, but she didn't understand fully how fast his synaptic processes were.

His face split into a huge grin. "We're going to have a baby!" he exclaimed. He was on his feet in a flash, grabbing Rose up in his arms and whirling her around. "We're going to have a baby!" He set her down and abruptly became serious. "We'll have to convert one of the rooms in the TARDIS to a nursery. And do shopping. Lots and lots of shopping. Eugh, I hate shopping." He made a brief face.

"Yes, yes, congratulations and all that crap," House interrupted. "Kindly do not start celebrating until you've left the hospital." With that he limped out of the room, and the Doctor wouldn't remember being so happy to see someone leave.

"Come on," he said, grabbing Rose's hand. "We've got so much to do."


	4. Chapter 4

Rose stepped out of the TARDIS onto the playground and took a moment to revel in the familiar surroundings. She clutched the strap of her backpack in one hand. The other rested on her stomach, which was now noticeably swollen. The Doctor stepped out beside her and took her backpack from her, swinging it up onto his shoulder.

"You ready?" she asked.

"To face your mum?" he replied, looking decidedly glum. "Nope. But there's no avoiding this, is there?"

"Nope," Rose replied, taking her hand in his.

She started calling the instant she got the front door open. "Mum! Mum, it's us! We're back!"

"Oh, Rose!" she heard Jackie yell from the kitchen. She hurried into view, her face lit up. Then her eyes fell on Rose and she stopped dead in her tracks. "Rose, what's happened to you?"

Rose smiled uncertainly. "We're going to have a baby," she said. "Mum...are you all right?"

Jackie suddenly whirled on the Doctor. "This is all your fault!" she yelled, and slapped him across the face. "You've done this to my Rose! You hateful man!"

"Mum, stop it!" Rose grabbed her mother's arm before Jackie could hit the Doctor again. The Doctor backed out of harm's way, looking extremely alarmed. "Mum, stop!"

Jackie finally stopped trying to attack the Doctor and calmed down enough to listen to her daughter. "It's all right, Mum," Rose said. "We want this. I love him and he loves me and we're going to have a baby. Your grandchild. You're going to be a grandmum."

"Oh," Jackie said, her eyes growing wide. "Oh, I need to sit down." She lowered herself onto the couch and Rose sat beside her. The Doctor gingerly perched on the edge of the armchair, rubbing his hands together. "How far along are you?" Jackie asked at length.

"About five months," Rose replied. "We would have come sooner, but all sorts of things came up."

"But you've only been gone a couple of months," Jackie insisted.

"The wonders of time travel," the Doctor muttered under his breath. He blinked and looked up into the kitchen. "Uh, Jackie...what's that?"

Rose followed his gaze and saw the blurred gray outline. "Mum?" she squeaked.

"Oh, don't worry," Jackie said, suddenly brightening up. "It's just the ghost shift."

*****

Rose opened the door of the TARDIS a crack and peered out. The Doctor had told her to stay inside no matter what, to not come out in any circumstances, but that was before the Daleks and Cybermen had gone to war. She watched them firing at each other through the warehouse, completely bewildered. Where had they all come from?

Then she caught sight of the Doctor peeking through the door. He edged further into the warehouse, and then made a dash towards one of the crates. A dying Cyberman knocked him sprawling, and for a moment he didn't get up.

Rose didn't stop to think. She flung open the TARDIS door and darted across the space separating her from the father of her child. She grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. The Doctor snatched two objects from the crate and they dashed out of the warehouse.

"Rose!" Jackie exclaimed, sweeping her daughter into a tight hug. "You're all right."

"I'm fine, Mum," she said, hugging her back. Then she caught sight of the rest of the group. "Mickey? What are you doing here?"

"Long story," he replied. "How are you? How's the baby?"

"Fine. We're both fine," Rose said, giving up on understanding anything that was going on. "Jake, Pete. Hi."

"Hi," Jake said, waving.

"No time for this," the Doctor said, glaring at Rose. "We have to get to the top floor to see what they're doing with the Genesis Ark." Rose didn't bother asking what the Genesis Ark was. She just grabbed her mum's hand and followed as they piled into the lift.

They lined the windows on the top floor, a long white room that ended in a blank wall. They stared in horror as the Daleks poured out of the Ark, filling the sky with their malevolent forms. Rose groped for the Doctor's hand.

"What are we going to do?" she whispered.

"I have a plan," he whispered back.

At that moment, two Daleks burst through the window, showering them with broken glass. The Doctor grabbed his companion and shielded her body with his.

"Exterminate!" the Daleks shrieked. "Exterminate!"

"Go!" the Doctor yelled. "All of you go! Back to the other world!"

It was chaos. Jake and Mickey were trying to fire while Pete dragged Jackie away from the Daleks. Rose yelled at the Doctor to do something, but he was visibly torn between protecting his lover and enacting his plan.

"Exterminate!" screamed the Daleks.

"Stop!" The voice resonated through the room, shaking the floor and lifting the fine hairs at the back of the neck. The Doctor stared at Rose in horror. She stood by the shattered window, her hair whipping in the wind. Light surrounded her in a golden halo and burned in her eyes. "Stop!" she commanded again.

"Identify new threat!" one of the Daleks ordered.

"I am Bad Wolf," the entity announced. "I am eternity. I am time, and yours is up." She lifted a hand and the Dalek dissolved into golden sparks. The other followed not long after.

"Rose, you can't do this," the Doctor yelled, reaching for her. "The Time Vortex is gone!"

"I cannot be undone," the entity replied. "I create myself, and I will always exist." She turned to look out at the war unfolding on the ground below. "This ends now." She waved her hand. "I open the walls between the worlds, and I protect life." One by one, Jake, Mickey, Pete, and Jackie vanished, transported to the other side of the temporal rift. Then the blank, white wall rippled, in its place a blinding white light. "I open the Howling and let it claim its own."

Bad Wolf reached out and seized the Doctor's hand tightly as the Void began to draw everything back into itself, everything that had touched it, that was covered in its shroud. It lasted forever, the wind whistling around them, but they stood firm, anchored by Bad Wolf. The Daleks and the Cybermen vanished into the Howling, condemned to the hell they had tried to exploit.

Then the breach between the universes closed, the wind died and the light faded, leaving Rose and the Doctor standing side-by-side in the white room. Rose blinked as if waking up from a deep sleep. Then a look of horror crossed her face when she realized what she had done.

"Mum!" she screamed, running towards the wall. She slammed her hands against it. "No! Mum!" The Doctor took her by the shoulders and turned her away from the breach, wrapping her in his arms. "Bring her back," Rose begged him. "Please, bring Mum back."

"I'm sorry," he murmured into her hair. "Rose, I'm so sorry. There's nothing I can do."

She broke down into sobs, clinging to her lover as if he was her only support.

*****

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Rose asked, looking over the Doctor's shoulder.

"As sure as I can be," he replied, intent on his work. "You won't have much time, just a couple of minutes. We're lucky to have found a supernova with the necessary energy output."

"When will it be ready?"

"Just give me a second to finish these calibrations," he said. He pointed his sonic screwdriver at the connections. "There we go. Stand right there."

Rose circled the console to stand on the spot he had indicated. Suddenly, another image superimposed itself over the interior of the TARDIS: a rocky beach with white sand and her mum standing a few paces away.

"Rose!" Jackie exclaimed, stepping closer. "I knew it was you." She paused, looking her daughter up and down. "You look like a ghost."

"Oh, sorry," Rose muttered, trying to keep her tears under control. "Doctor?" He used his sonic screwdriver again and the shore solidified around her. "Hi, mum."

"Rose, I've missed you so much," Jackie said, reaching up to touch her daughter's face. Her fingers passed through Rose's cheek, doing nothing to stem the flow of tears.

"I know. I've missed you, too," Rose said in a choked voice. "Mum, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to send you there. I just...I just wanted you safe."

"I know, sweetie," Jackie said sadly. "It's all right."

Rose looked around. "Where are we?"

"Norway. Place called Dalig Ulv Stranden. Means Bad Wolf Bay," Jackie replied. Rose chuckled humorlessly.

"Figures. How—how is everyone?" Rose asked brokenly.

"We're all fine," Jackie assured her. "Me, Mickey, your dad, and the baby."

"The what?" Rose demanded, her hand straying to her own swollen abdomen.

Jackie smiled sadly. "Your little brother or sister," she said. "I'm three months gone. But look at you! When are you due?"

"A couple of weeks," Rose replied. "Oh, mum..." She trailed off, not knowing what else to say. "We got married," she blurted. "The Doctor and me. On a planet called Elloras. The moons were setting and it was beautiful. I wanted you to be there."

"I'm so happy for you," Jackie said softly. "How much time have we got?"

Rose looked around at her husband for confirmation. "Forty-five seconds," she said, the tears flowing unchecked. "Mum...Mum, I love you. I love you so much and I wish we could be together."

"I love you, too, sweetie," Jackie said. "But it's time for you to have your own life, now. My baby girl's all grown up." She wiped at her eyes, smearing mascara. "Have a good life, Rose. Do what makes you happy. And don't worry about me. I'm all right."

"Okay," Rose mouthed, unable to force the words past her tears. "Okay, I will. Oh, Mum, the baby's a girl! It's a girl and we're going to call her—" Suddenly the shoreline disappeared and Rose was back in the TARDIS. The Doctor caught her as she collapsed, sobbing uncontrollably/. He held her in his arms, rocking her back and forth.

"I love you, Rose Tyler," he whispered in her ear. "Everything's going to be all right. I'm going to take care of you."

A sudden noise made them both jump and spin around. A red-haired woman stood on the other side of the console, dressed in a wedding gown.

"What?" the Doctor sputtered.

"Who are you?" the woman demanded.

"But—" the Doctor began.

"Where am I?" The woman's voice grew more shrill.

"What?" The Doctor obviously had no idea what was going on, and Rose was too miserable to care.

"What the hell is this place?" the woman shouted.

"_What?!_" the Doctor yelled.

*****

The patient's name was Rose Tyler, and she was due to give birth any day. Martha Jones jotted down the information from the chart, still smarting from the morning's session with Dr. Stoker. The patient and her husband ignored Martha. He sat as close to her side as he could, holding her hand as they talked in low voices.

"Anywhere. Absolutely anywhere in the world, and you wanted London," Mr. Tyler said.

"What's wrong with London?" Mrs. Tyler asked indignantly. "I was born in London."

"I know, and don't get me wrong, London's a lovely place," Mr. Tyler said quickly. "But think about. Anywhere at all. Rome, Cairo, New York, Amsterdam, Moscow, Beijing, Cardiff—"

"Cardiff?" Mrs. Tyler interrupted with an amused grin.

Her husband shrugged. She patted his hand and shook her head.

"No. London's home, and I want her born here. London, England, earth."

"All right," he said. "As long as you're sure."

"I'm sure," Mrs. Tyler said emphatically.

Martha pushed the strange conversation to the back of her mind and checked the fetal heart monitor the woman was hooked up to. Everything looked normal, so she turned to go. Swales fell into step beside her.

"Have you seen the weather outside?" Swales said. "It's raining something fierce."

"Surprise, surprise," Martha said. Her phone began to ring. "Oh, it's my sister. I'll just take this." The two interns slipped into a staff room and Martha answered the phone. Meanwhile, Mr. Tyler fussed over his wife.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked, fluffing her pillow. "Do you need something to drink? Anything at all?"

"Relax, Doctor," she said, pulling him back into his chair. "I'm fine. Stop fussing."

"How can I stop fussing?" he demanded, his eyes wide. "You're about to give birth! We're going have a baby!"

"A baby Doctor crawling around the TARDIS," Rose said, grinning. "Can you imagine it? It's going to be beautiful."

"I never thought I'd have more children," he said softly, resting one hand on his wife's distended abdomen. "The Time War...everything ended." He smiled suddenly and tousled her hair. "And you, you're a little ape human. How come you're carrying a Time Lord baby? That's just not supposed to happen."

"Maybe because I'm about as human as you are these days," Rose retorted.

He laughed and kissed her cheek. "Try to get some rest," he ordered. "You'll need it."

That's when the building began to shake and the screaming started.

When everything was finally still, Rose ripped out the sensors and the IV, trying to stand up off the bed. "What's going on?" she demanded. "What's that?"

"Let's go see," the Doctor grabbed her hand and they headed toward the window, where they were shortly joined by two young women in white coats.

"We're on the bloody moon!" Martha exclaimed.

"It's beautiful," Rose said, her face wreathed in a smile. "Look, Doctor, there! You can see the earth!"

"It's real," Martha muttered. "It's really real. Hold on!" She reached for the window latch but Swales caught her hand.

"Don't!" she cried. "We'll lose all the air."

"Don't be silly," Rose snapped. "The building's hardly airtight; there's got to be something else holding the air in."

"Right you are, darling," the Doctor said, peering out the window. He then looked over at Rose questioningly.

"Go on, then," she said, making a shooing gesture. "Find out what we're doing here."

"Right." He swung around to face Martha. "Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda?"

"By the patient's lounge, yeah," she replied. Unlike the other occupants of the hospital, she looked remarkably calm.

"Fancy going out?" the Doctor asked.

"Okay," Martha said promptly.

"Good girl. Lead the way." As they left, the Doctor half-turned and called to Swales. "My wife's having a baby. Keep an eye on her for me, will you?"

Swales was shaking, pale with fear. Rose slipped her arm around her shoulders. "Don't worry," Rose said soothingly. "He knows what he's doing. He'll have you home in no time at all."

"But the air," Swales insisted. "We'll run out of air and we'll all die!"

"None of that," Rose said sharply. "I don't know about you but I don't plan on dying today, so you'll stop that sort of talk. Oh!" Her hands flew to her belly. "Oh, I do hope that was supposed to happen."

Swales pulled herself together enough to look over Rose quickly. "It's your water, ma'am," she said, indicating the puddle on the floor. "It's broke. You're going into labor."

Rose sighed heavily. "Fantastic," she said.

The Doctor returned about a quarter of an hour later, Martha in tow. Rose was back on the bed, looking pale and sweaty. Her breath was coming in pants. The Doctor was at her side in a flash, fumbling for her hand. Her grip was crushing.

"Rose, what's the matter?" he demanded, alarmed.

"Nothing," she replied. "So far, everything seems to be normal, right, Swales?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm not training to by a obstetrician!" the med student wailed.

"What are you on about?" the Doctor asked, frowning at the woman.

"The baby's coming," Rose said through gritted teeth. "Right now. So you find out how we got on the moon, and you send us back, because my baby's not going to be born on the bleeding moon."

"It's the Judoon," he told her. "They used an H2O scoop to bring us here. They've started cataloging everyone. I think they're looking for a non-human."

"That's not good," Rose panted. "What're we going to do?"

"Well, I think your DNA still reads as human, but I'm not so lucky. I'm going to have to stay out of their way."

"So you're serious?" Martha said. "You're really not human?"

"Looks can be deceiving," the Doctor replied, his attention still on Rose. "We have to find whoever it is the Judoon are looking for and make sure they find them before they find me."

She nodded, her hair clinging to her neck. A groan cut off her words as the next contraction hit. "How are you gonna do that?" she finally managed.

"I'll check through the records, see if there's any patients admitted with unusual symptoms," he said. "Are you going to be all right?"

"I'm always all right," she said, parroting his own words back to him. "Just go."

"I love you," he told her.

"Love you, too. Now get out of here."

Rose burst out laughing when the Judoon arrived on her floor. "Space rhinos!" she shouted, not caring if they heard. "They're a bunch of space rhinos!" Then she cried out in pain as every muscle in her abdomen clenched.

"Human," the Judoon declared, marking a black X on her hand. It scanned Swales as well and came to the same conclusion. They stomped off in search of more people to scan. Rose started laughing again.

"What's so funny?" Swales asked, her eyes large an teary.

"Space pigs, and now space rhinos," Rose giggled. "What's next? Kangaroos?"

Her contractions were less than two minutes apart when her husband reappeared, this time without Martha. "Rose, I found who the Judoon were looking for and I have a plan but it involves me doing something stupid and I'm very, very sorry and I love you so much," he said in a rush.

She stared at him. "What plan?" she demanded breathlessly. "How stupid?"

He took her hand tightly. "How are you holding up? How's our baby girl?"

"We're both fine," Rose said. "But Swales said that we're running out of oxygen."

"Don't worry," the Doctor said, kissing her forehead. "I'll have everything sorted out in no time. I have to go, but I'll be back as soon as I can, all right?" Rose nodded and held his hand until he stepped away, their fingers sliding apart.

Minutes passed, but he didn't come back. The air grew stale and heavy, and Rose had a hard time concentrating. Swales, however, made a partial recovery and stood by Rose as the baby came, ordering her to push and catching the infant girl.

Rose cradled her daughter in her arms, wrapped in a sheet and still wet. "My little girl," she whispered. "Born on the moon." The baby's mouth opened and closed as if she was gasping for breath. Rose could barely keep her eyes open. Swales had succumbed minutes earlier. Rose took a deep breath, her last, and gently blew into her daughter's nostrils to fill the baby's lungs. Then everything spun into darkness.

Rose woke with a pounding headache. Every muscle in her body was sore. She opened her eyes and found she was still in the hospital.

"Good morning," said a cheery voice to her left. She turned her head and saw the Doctor sitting beside her bed, holding their daughter in his arms. "How you feeling? Headache? That's normal for oxygen deprivation."

"Let me see her," Rose said, reaching for the infant. The Doctor put the baby in her arms and rested his chin on Rose's shoulder.

"Oh, she's beautiful," he whispered. "She looks just like you."

"Are we gonna use it?" Rose asked. "The name we picked out?"

"Yup," he replied. He reached down to cup the infant's head in his hand. "Olivia Jacqueline Tyler." He smiled at Rose. "Oh, Rose. You did a brilliant job."

She smiled back. "So did you. Thanks for saving me. Again."


	5. Chapter 5

"So let me get this straight," Jack said, lifting his hands. "You were born on the _moon_?"

Livy nodded rather smugly. "How many people you know can say that?" she said.

"Born on the moon after the hospital had been invaded by space rhinos." Jack shook his head. "You've got a hell of a story, Liv."

"Oh, it gets better," Livy said eagerly, leaning forward. She had gotten over her tears, lost in the telling of her story. "Wait until you hear what happened when I was two..." she trailed off thoughtfully. "No. Bad idea. Shouldn't tell you that. Anyway, you came to live with us in TARDIS a little time after that and we had all sorts of adventures."

Jack laughed as he regarded her. She had so many of the Doctor's mannerisms, but every so often she'd flash a bit of Rose. Already he loved her fiercely, for her own sake and not just because of her parents. Suddenly he was very impatient to meet her in the future, when he would return to the TARDIS and become a part of her life.

"So..." he drew the word out, reluctant to spoil the mood. "The Bonedancers?"

Livy wilted a little, shifting in her chair. "Yeah, about them." She looked off into the distance. "I really, really shouldn't tell you about that. Dad would kill me. And the time flow—it wouldn't be good to change that." She shook her head. "Sorry."

Jack shrugged. "Yeah, okay. I understand." He leaned back. "When do you think your parents are going to come pick you up?"

"I don't know," Livy replied, wrinkling her nose. "Hopefully soon. Before I muck up the flow of time anymore than I already have." They both jumped when an odd tune jangled out of the silence. Livy frowned, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a pink cellphone. She glanced at the caller ID and her face lit up.

"Mum!" she exclaimed into the phone. "What's happening? Is everything all right?" Her eyes widened as her face went blank with shock. "W-what?" she stammered. "How?" The blood drained from her face and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, which didn't quite muffle the sob that escaped her lips. Jack watched in horror as she broke down and wept as if her heart was breaking.

Livy collapsed out of her chair, huddling on the floor, her arms wrapped around her stomach. Her cell phone clattered to the ground. Jack knelt beside the sobbing girl, putting his arm around her shoulders, and picked up the phone. "Hello?" he said into it. "Rose?"

"Jack," said a broken voice on the other end. "Oh, God..."

Jack hugged Livy tightly to his side. "Rose, what's going on? What happened? Where are you?"

"I c-can't," the voice stuttered, almost unrecognizable from tears. "I'm sorry." Then the line went dead. Jack turned to Livy.

"What happened?" he asked gently.

"He's gone," she gasped, crying so hard she could barely breathe. "He promised he'd never—he's supposed to be all right. Why isn't he all right?"

"Who?" Jack asked urgently, but she shook her head violently, refusing to answer. For a long time he held her as she cried until she lay silent against his chest, gasping for breath. "It's gonna be okay," Jack murmured gently, knowing it was wholly inadequate. "It's gonna be all right."

He blinked in surprise when something underneath her shirt began to glow. She reached up and pulled a chain free. Dangling from the chain was a silver key that was currently flashing on and off. "TARDIS key," she explained in a hoarse voice. "They've come back for me."

"Do you want me to walk you up?" Jack offered.

"No," she replied, scrubbing her face. "I'll be fine." She got to her feet and they stood staring at each other for a long time. Then Livy wrapped her arms around Jack in one last hug. "Thanks," she said softly. With that she shoved her hands into her pockets and walked toward the lift, never looking back.

*****

Jack stood shoulder-to shoulder with the Doctor and Donna, staring up in open-mouthed horror at the dozens—no, _hundreds—_of Daleks in the air above them. Jack's hopes, lifted by finally being reunited with the Doctor and Rose, plummeted again. The Doctor turned to look over his shoulder back into the TARDIS.

"Come out, Rose," he called, his voice under tight control. "It's no safer in there."

Jack followed the Doctor's gaze and saw Rose walking toward the open door, looking terrified. Not for herself, but for the toddler she carried in her arms. Two-year-old Livy peered out through a mess of ginger hair, unaware of the danger her family was in.

Just as Rose reached the door, it swung shut tightly. The Doctor's expression faltered as he jumped toward the time ship. "Rose?" he called, rattling the handle.

"Doctor!" came her muffled reply. "Let me out!"

"I didn't do anything!" he yelled back. He spun around to face the Supreme Dalek. "What did you do?" he demanded, more of his control beginning to slip.

"This is not of Dalek origin," the large Dalek intoned.

"I'm not staying behind!" Rose shouted, banging on the door. "Doctor!"

"Stop it!" the Doctor yelled angrily. "Open the door and let her out!"

"This is Time Lord treachery," the Supreme Dalek accused.

"Me?!" the Doctor exclaimed. "The door shut on its own. I didn't do anything."

"Nevertheless, the TARDIS is a weapon and will be destroyed."

The three friends cried out when the police box fell through the floor, leaving a square hole. "What are you doing?" the Doctor cried. "Bring it back!" When the Supreme Dalek didn't reply, the Doctor continued, "What've you done with it? Where's it going?"

"The Crucible has a heart of Z-Neutrino energy," the Supreme Dalek said, its flat mechanical voice only increasing its menace. "The TARDIS will be deposited into its core."

"No!" Jack and the Doctor yelled at the same time. Donna pressed her hands to her mouth in horror.

"You can't do that!" the Doctor protested. "It'll be torn apart!"

"Rose is still in there," Donna yelled.

"Let her go!" Jack demanded.

"The female and the descendant will perish with the TARDIS," the Supreme Dalek declared. "Observe." A screen sprang up over their heads, showing a burning sun and the TARDIS bobbing madly in the midst of the energy. "The last child of Gallifrey is helpless," the Dalek gloated.

The Doctor's body quivered with rage, his hands clenched at his sides. "Stop this," he begged. "Please. I'll do anything. Put me in their place, just let them go."

The Supreme Dalek ignored his plea. "You are connected to the TARDIS. Now feel it die."

The Time Lord couldn't take his eyes from the screen. Donna stepped to his side and took his hand in both of hers. Jack felt sick to his stomach, frantic to do something—anything—to save Rose and Livy. Somewhere in the background, a Dalek was counting down. On the screen, the TARDIS began to fade, succumbing to the destructive forces of the Crucible's heart. The Doctor went still, his face blank and void of emotion. It was is if his soul had abruptly vacated his body, leaving an empty shell behind.

"The TARDIS has been destroyed," the Supreme Dalek declared. "Tell me, Doctor. How do you feel?"

The Doctor made no reply. A tear slipped down his cheek, followed by two more. Donna was openly weeping, her shoulders shaking as she tried to hold it in.

"Anger? Sorrow? Despair?" the Supreme Dalek pressed.

"Yeah," the Doctor whispered.

"Then, if emotions are so important, surely we have enhanced you," the Dalek mocked.

Jack, a plan barely forming in his head, spun around, yanking his pistol from under his coat. "Yeah?" he yelled. "Well feel this!" The bullets were ineffective, just as he had expected. He knew what came next. Searing, burning pain that didn't even compare to the loss of Rose and Livy, and brief, merciful darkness.

*****

Jack knelt on the floor of the vault, his arm around Jackie's shoulders. She had just found out about her daughter's death. Mickey was supporting Sarah Jane, and the girl from UNIT—Martha Jones—was slumped not far way, clearly struggling not to cry.

The Doctor was still locked in his frozen state, despite Donna yelling at him to do something, _anything_. Davros was shrieking and laughing like the maniac he was. The Reality Bomb was going off and all their plans had failed. The universe was going to end.

"Gwen, Ianto, I'm so sorry," Jack whispered, wishing that, if this was the end, he could be with them.

A breeze ruffled his dark hair, accompanied by a wheezing, mechanical groan. Jack's eyes widened and he looked around, catching Sarah Jane's gaze. They stared at each other in growing comprehension, and life flooded back into Jack's heart.

The Doctor snapped back to himself as a light began to flash in the corner of the vault. "Rose!" he cried. The TARDIS fully materialized, light blazing from the windows. The door swung open and a golden cloud flowed across the vault, coming to a rest in front of the prisoners.

"Davros!" Bad Wolf's voice resonated through the space, sending shivers across Jack's skin. "Your time of tyranny is at an end."

"No!" the Doctor cried, making an aborted step towards his wife. "Rose, you can't!"

"Who are you?" Davros demanded, moving backwards from the glowing entity. He seemed irritated at being interrupted, but not particularly concerned.

"I am the end of all things, and the beginning," Bad Wolf declared, her eyes blazing with righteous anger. "I bring your destruction."

"You cannot stop me," Davros spat. "I will destroy reality!"

"I _am_ reality!" Bad Wolf replied. "Time and space, day and night. Moons and stars at my fingertips. You are imbalance and balance must be restored." Bad Wolf lifted a hand and the increasing whine of the Reality Bomb abruptly dropped into silence.

Dalek Caan cackled wildly, tentacles flailing as it twitched at its own insane thoughts. "It is the end!" he said in a shrill singsong. "The bright burning! The endless flame!"

"Doctor," Bad Wolf said, turning her face towards the Time Lord. "You are needed." The containment cells vanished, releasing the Doctor and Donna. The Doctor stayed rooted to the spot for a moment, and then lunged toward the control console.

"No!" Davros shrieked. "Guards, exterminate them!"

Bad Wolf's head whipped around as the first Dalek fired on her. She blocked the beam with her open hand and gestured. The Dalek screamed in agony as it dissolved into golden light. The others froze in place.

"Oh, my God," Jackie whispered. "What's happened to Rose?"

"She's the goddess of time," Jack replied, a grin stretching across his face. He darted back into the TARDIS and snatched up his gun. A faint clatter made him spin around. Livy sat on the floor under the central console, calmly sucking her thumb. Jack made a face and ran back into the vault. "Donna!" he yelled, and jerked his head back toward the time ship.

Donna gasped. "Livy!" She pushed past Jack into the TARDIS. Jack turned his attention to Davros, who seemed to be trying to make his escape.

"You're not going anywhere," Jack said, shoving the muzzle of his enormous gun in Davros' chest.

"All right," the Doctor said. "Activating the megatron. Let's send these planets home."

"This is my greatest triumph!" Davros screamed. "You will not take it from me!" He lifted his hand, pointing at Jack, and blue energy crackled around his metal gauntlet, only to race back up his arm, making him screech in pain.

Bad Wolf stared coldly at Davros, her golden aura swirling around her in a halo. "The universe has no need of you, Davros. I take you from existence, from all of time; past, present, and future. You will never have existed and you will exist no more." At her gesture, the creator of the Daleks began to fragment, dissolving bit by bit as he screamed and thrashed.

"Rose, you can't do this!" the Doctor yelled. "You can't judge people like that! You haven't the right!"

"I have every right," Bad Wolf declared. "I bring balance. I see the deviations in time and I correct them."

Jack caught movement out of the corner of his eye and he saw the Supreme Dalek descending through at hole in the ceiling. "Heads up!" he yelled, swinging his gun around.

"You will all be exterminated," the Supreme Dalek shouted, practically shaking in rage. It fired a blast of killing energy, narrowly missing the Doctor and striking the console.

"Like I was saying," Jack yelled. "Feel this!" His shot blasted the Dalek's dome off, leaving the mutant inside exposed to burn.

"No!" the Doctor yelled in irritation, kicking the now-smoking control panel. "One planet left. Guess which one!"

Jack barked a grim laugh. "Typical," he said, shaking his head. The Doctor glanced uneasily his wife, still wearing the mantle of a goddess.

"Everyone in the TARDIS!" the Time Lord ordered. "We can use it to get Earth back home."

Bad Wolf gasped suddenly and began to slump forward, her halo vanishing. Jackie lunged forward to catch Rose in her arms. "I've got you, sweetheart," the older woman murmured. Rose's hazel eyes fluttered open.

"Mum?" she asked in confusion.

"TARDIS!" the Doctor yelled. "In! Now!" Mickey, taking control of the the freed captives, herded everyone towards the time ship. Jack stayed behind with the Doctor, who was making last-minute adjustments to the console.

"Doctor." Both men jumped, having forgotten the presence of Dalek Caan. The insane alien twitched its tentacles at them. "Doctor, I have seen. Seen the Daleks. Seen their power and their cruelty and I have decreed 'No more!'"

The Doctor's brow furrowed. "It was you. You locked Rose in. You forced Bad Wolf to come."

"I have seen the end of all things Dalek," Caan confirmed. "The Storm and the Wolf will make it so."

Jack leaned toward his friend. "He's right," he said intensely. "Even without the Reality Bomb, there's enough Daleks to wipe out the cosmos. You have to do something."

A haunted look entered the Time Lord's dark eyes. "No," he whispered. "I can't do that again."

"What about Rose?" Jack pressed. "What about Livy? What kind of life could you give them in a universe controlled by the Daleks?"

"It is the prophecy, Doctor," Caan wailed. "Everything must come to dust...all things. Everything dies."

The Doctor's face froze in shock. Jack frowned in confusion. The words must have had a profound affect on the Doctor, because he suddenly went into a frenzy of motion: spinning dials, throwing switches, and punching buttons. The entire Crucible rocked under their feet as the frozen Daleks began to explode.

"Come on!" the Doctor yelled, darting toward the TARDIS. Jack spared a last look at Caan, who was singing unintelligibly, waving his tentacles as if in farewell. Jack grimaced and pulled the door shut behind him, turning to face the other passengers.

The Doctor stood in front of his wife, peering closely at her. "Are you all right?" he asked softly.

She nodded. "Yeah," she replied without moving out of her mother's embrace.

"Right then!" The Doctor whirled around and punched his fist in the air. "Let's go home!"


	6. Chapter 6

Five people stood in the TARDIS console room, two of whom where running around the circular control panel, pushing buttons, pulling levers, and yelling back and forth at each other.

"Make sure the temporal stabilizer stays in the blue!" the Doctor exclaimed, spinning a crankshaft vigorously. "And keep the wavelength frequency ratio under seven to three!"

"I'm doing, I'm doing!" Livy replied, her hands flying over the controls. At one point she frowned at a display screen, lifted her foot, and kicked the console. Then she rechecked the display and nodded in satisfaction.

Rose laughed as she stood back out of the way. Jack had his hands clasped behind his back in order to resist the urge to jump in. Donna had her arms crossed over her chest, watching the teenager work with a fond expression. While Rose and Jack had picked up some of the skills necessary to pilot the TARDIS, Donna had pointedly refused, claiming she'd cause more harm than good.

The Doctor had started teaching Livy the day of her fourteenth birthday, when he deemed her old enough to form a stable mental connection with the TARDIS. Since then, only Livy had been allowed to help him fly the temperamental old time ship, despite the number of wrong destinations they had ended up in.

"Oh, oh, oh!" Livy yelped. "We're losing power to the vortex extrapolation shielding!"

"Reroute main power feed through the auxiliary system and activate the emergency subroutine," the Doctor instructed his daughter.

"Got it," she replied. "And...done."

"Are you keeping an eye on the subspace turbulence equalizer?" Jack called out anxiously.

"Yes, yes," Livy said, throwing her uncle an exasperated look.

"Approaching coordinates," the Doctor said, peering at a readout screen. "Prepare for matter initialization! And in three...two...one...now!"

With a bang and a lurch that sent everyone to the floor, the TARDIS stopped moving. Smoke billowed from under the console. Jack, nearest the door, flung it open, coughing and rubbing at his burning eyes. Groping behind him, he grabbed Rose and Donna and dragged them into the sunshine. The Doctor and Livy followed closely, smoke rising from their clothes.

"Okay, that wasn't one of our best landings," the Doctor admitted.

"But we made it, yeah?" Livy said proudly, taking off her beloved hat and shaking her hair out. She smoothed the ginger strands back from her face and replaced the cap. "Wencisia Alpha, in the Ordron system."

"As far as I can tell, it certainly appears to be Wencisia," the Doctor mused, glancing around. They stood in the middle of a sandy hollow, grass-covered dunes rising around them.

"Right then," Donna said decisively, setting her hands on her hips. "Which direction's the shore in?"

"Erm..." The Doctor licked his finger and held it up. After a moment, he pointed. "That way."

"Topping!" Donna scrambled up the dune and out of sight. Rose looked over at Jack.

"You'd probably better go after her and keep her out of trouble," she told him.

"Yeah," he sighed, setting off after her. "Hey, Doc! Grab the sun lotion, will ya?"

The Doctor snorted but otherwise ignored his old friend. Instead, he looked over at his wife. "Ready for a holiday?"

Rose grinned, her tongue caught in her teeth. "Bet you ten quid we'll end up running for our lives because of something you say."

"Ten on something Jack does and you've got yourself a deal," the Doctor replied. He extended his hands, one to his daughter and one to his wife. "Allons-y!"

*****

Rose collapsed on the blanket next to her husband, breathless from laughter and exertion. "Ah!" he exclaimed, wriggling away from her. "You're soaked!"

"That's the point of going to the shore," she teased, shaking her wet hair and sending droplets flying. He squawked in protest threw a towel at her. She took it and wrapped it around her shoulders. The Doctor looked as relaxed as he could get, forgoing his beloved suit in favor of more beach-appropriate clothing. He had declined to get wet, however, despite the others' encouragement.

"Hungry?" he asked, offering his wife a sandwich.

She accepted it and peeled back the paper wrapping to take a bite. "So when are we going to meet the Wencisians?" she mumbled around a full mouth.

"As soon as Donna and Livy stop trying to drown Jack," the Doctor replied, nodding over at the other three.

"Will there be shops?" Rose asked.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Yes, there will probably be shops. Seriously, I take you to a completely new planet and all you want to do is go shopping. Human women, you are all the same."

Rose set aside her sandwich and leaned toward him until their noses were almost touching. "All of us?" she asked archly, eyebrows raised.

"Well..." He drew the word out as only he could. "Not _all_ of you," he finally conceded.

"Good. Because I'd hate to think you've spent the last sixteen years with someone completely ordinary," Rose continued, mock-sympathetically.

He grinned back at her. "Rose Tyler, you are anything but ordinary." He tilted his head down to kiss her, and they both gasped in shock as a torrent of cold water crashed down on them.

"Oi!" Livy said indignantly, holding an empty bucket. "Get a room."

The Doctor scrambled to his feet as Livy bolted away, and the two Time Lords sprinted down the beach, sand spraying from their feet.

Donna and Jack sat down on either side of Rose, jack reaching for the picnic basket. "She didn't get the food wet, did she?" he asked.

Rose laughed as she watched her husband chase their daughter back and forth, driving her inexorably towards the water. "I think she might have missed," she said.

"God, nine hundred plus years and he's still a kid." Donna shook her head, an amused smile dancing around her lips. "I hope he never changes."

"Me, too," Rose agreed.

*****

"...And then the Doctor said, 'Whoops, wrong species!'"

As Jack finished his story, the women of the family were doubled over in laughter and the Doctor was crimson and indignant.

"That's not how it went," he muttered, his hands thrust into his pockets.

"Oh, I'm sure," Rose said, grinning up at him. "Because you never make mistakes."

"I do not!" he exclaimed. "And when I do, they're very clever ones."

"Everybody hush a minute, yeah?" Livy interrupted suddenly, coming to a halt. She stood in the middle of the path they had been following for the past fifteen minutes, a puzzled expression on her face.

"What is it, sweetheart?" Rose asked, walking back to stand by the girl. "What's wrong?"

Livy turned frowning eyes upon her mother. "We can see the city," she said, pointing to the buildings in the distance. "How come we can't hear it?"

The others threw quick glances at each other, suddenly serious. Jack lifted his arm and began punching buttons on his wrist strap. "She's right," he said grimly. "We should have been able to hear that city a mile off."

"That's strange," the Doctor said distractedly. "Everybody listen. D'you hear that?"

Again they went still. The silence was so heavy that it rang in their ears, almost deafening. "Hear what, Doctor?" Donna whispered.

"Exactly," he replied. "The birds aren't singing." With that he took off running down the path, straight for the city. The others hesitated only a second before going after him.

They didn't slow until they passed the first few blocks. Then the Doctor ground to a halt, turning about. "Something's wrong," he said. "Very, very wrong. Anyone take a guess?"

Rose shivered and reached out to take Livy's hand. Jack consulted his wrist strap again. "Five life signs," he announced, his voice echoing in the silence. "That's us."

"But where's everybody gone?" Donna wondered.

The city was empty.


End file.
